How We Rank: the Pulse, Alerts and Top Stories

Everything on SpikeTrendWatch is ranked by fixed, published rules, applied the same way to every country and every story. No person and no advertiser moves a story up or down.

The Pulse (0–100)

Every hour we read public search-trend data for 172 countries. Each search spike gets a Pulse made of three parts:

• Volume, up to 60 points: how many searches it has drawn, on a logarithmic scale, so a search ten times larger earns a fixed step more, not ten times the points.
• Spread, up to 30 points: 2.5 points for every additional country where it is trending.
• Staying power, up to 10 points: 2 points for every day it keeps trending.

A spike that has stopped trending for 8 hours keeps 60% of its score until it ages out. Tiers: 90+ Exploding, 70+ Red hot, 40+ Heating up, below 40 Simmering.

Flash, Wave or Shift

Flash: trending for under a day and a half; burns out in days. Wave: a day and a half to a week; lasts for weeks. Shift: a week or more; a lasting change in what people look for.

Alert levels

Red: the story involves conflict, loss of life, disaster, major disruption or scandal, or an official travel advisory at Level 3 or 4. Yellow: a spike less than 6 hours old with a Pulse of 30 or more, a spike that gained 12+ Pulse points in about 3 hours, a news report less than 2 hours old, or a Level 2 advisory. Green: growing steadily.

Top Stories and Live coverage

Every hour we compare the latest reports from all our newsrooms. Reports that share the same names and key words are grouped as one story. A story ranks higher the more independent newsrooms report it, if it involves loss of life or security, the fresher it is, and if a picture is available. The top story becomes the Live coverage timeline, where each entry links to the newsroom that published it.

Countries “hot right now”

A country's heat combines how many of its own searches are spiking, how many of the world's spikes are about it, how many stories mention it in 24 hours, how many of those involve loss of life or security, and how many different newsrooms cover it. Gravity counts more than volume, so a country in crisis ranks above a country that is simply loud.

What we do not do

• We do not write or rewrite news stories; every headline is the publisher's own and links to the original.
• We do not accept payment to place, rank or label anything.
• We do not track individuals; local weather uses the approximate area of your connection and stores nothing.

Questions about a ranking: contact@spiketrendwatch.com.